And more was to come, but I had to wait 20 minutes. Bill Mallonee took to the stage quietly and unobtrusively as the audience finished off our halftime refreshments. (During the interval, in the great tradition of British cinemas, ladies appeared with trays, selling little tubs of ice cream with those tiny wooden spoons.) Bill launched into "High...and Lonesome," his voice lower and more gravely than Steve's, the lyrics more rooted in a melancholia. His second song, Vigilantes of Love's "Lucifer," was introduced as being about a friend's struggles with cocaine. With a song this close to home, with these lyrics, the delivery was raw, honest, and pulled no punches. For me, that characterised Bill's set: an emotional honesty that could at times seem close to getting too revelatory, too painful, but never overstepping a mark.

Following an upbeat version of "With Any Luck At All," Bill told of a conversation he had with a guy in a car rental office. They were talking about music and Bill mentioned the then very recent death of Stevie Ray Vaughn. The clerk agreed this was a terrible loss and, after the briefest of pauses, added, "Why couldn't it have been Michael Jackson?" Bill was stumped for a reply. This clerk's view was that someone has to leave, someone has to stay, and on that particular day God had somehow got it wrong. With that, Bill went into "Who Will You Love?"

As with Steve's set, there was a mix of songs here from several periods, Bill's new solo album Dear Life, the earlier Friendly Fire, and VOL all getting equal exposure. From Friendly Fire, as well as the title track (delivered desperately quietly, Bill held in a single pool of white light), he played "Apple Of Your Eye," written for him by Julie Miller. He played a couple of bars, sang one line, and then stopped. His B harmonica was still in Toronto, but he wasn't going to be beaten: thinking aloud, he said that he would capo it to C, thus allowing him to play the harmonica line. At this point he also thanked Paul for the loan of the harmonica rack. This sort of thing bolstered the feeling that the show we were enjoying was light years away from the often-sterile pop/rock packages touted from city to city. What happened that night was a unique performance.

Steve then walked onstage, Bill mentioning that they'd been discussing Desert Island Discs and that the next song was on both their lists. It was Neil Young's "Out On The Weekend." After this, they walked off together, all smiles and backslapping. It had been a great gig, but the greedy boy with the camera and sticky fingers from the ice cream wanted still more, as did the rest of the audience. Bill reappeared, and after being unable to locate Paul with whom to do a duet (and Steve having nipped into the auditorium to listen in with the audience), he played a fine solo version of VOL's "Solar System" to conclude the evening in style.

Janis Lurins, my old Latvian friend, once told me of a Russian word, umilenye, which he described as "a state of mind where sadness, beauty, and joy together at once move you." As I left the venue, I couldn't help but think of Janis and want to tell him I understood what he meant.  continue